


kiss me and tell me i'm fine and forget we're dying

by deandratb



Series: A Thousand Sweet Kisses [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Season/Series 04, but then again it's Destiel and canon-compliant so what did you expect exactly, could fit neatly between episodes i suppose, mildly angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 11:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16932225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deandratb/pseuds/deandratb
Summary: Prompted kiss fic; set after the events of 4x16. Dean is out of the hospital and back in a roadside motel, but Castiel refuses to leave him the hell alone about Lucifer and saving the world.





	kiss me and tell me i'm fine and forget we're dying

**Author's Note:**

  * For [broken_hearted_bard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/broken_hearted_bard/gifts).



> Happy final night of Hanukkah for you, my Ander!! I thought this would be really difficult to write but after I did a full review of their S4 scenes it came surprisingly easily...so I hope it's a nice last present. <3
> 
> Prompt: **in the dark kiss**

Dean wouldn’t talk to Castiel about the future. He wouldn’t talk to him at all.

After Cas explained the role that Dean would have to play in stopping Lucifer, finally truly explained it--how it came from his actions in Hell, how repairing the damage was his fate too--Dean went from hopeless tears to asking him to leave the hospital room.

Dean didn’t demand it; he didn’t bother raising his voice. He asked in a broken whisper, and Castiel was gone with a soft whoosh of wings.

Once Dean had healed physically and Cas began visiting their latest motel, that was when it became clear that Dean had stopped talking to him. Cas tried to discuss the plan ahead, he tried to explain what he’d learned about the other angels. He thought surely the looming war would force Dean to engage.

But nothing did. Sam only shrugged when Castiel looked his way; the younger Winchester was still unwilling to forgive him for dragging Dean into the circle in the first place.

Cas arrived for the third time that week, well after dark, and Sam exited abruptly, claiming he needed air--yet another human expression that Castiel found nonsensical. They had all the air they needed. _Air was the same, wherever they went._

In the silence Sam left behind, Dean sat tensed on the edge of his bed, hands clenched into fists.

“I know you’re angry,” Cas said, turning toward him. “I meant it, when I said I didn’t want to ask you to--”

“Are you kidding me? I’m not angry, Cas.”

Though the tone of Dean’s outburst contradicted his words, Castiel was grateful to have gotten a response.

“You’re not.”

“No. You confirmed that I started the end of the world! I’m so freaking **past** angry. I’m...devastated. All I’ve ever tried to do was protect people, and I couldn’t even do that right.”

“You did your best. Under terrible circumstances.”

“I’m sure everyone who died thanks to me is real comforted by that.”

“Giving up won’t bring them back,” the angel pointed out. “Neither will feeling sorry for yourself.”

“And what would you have me do? Keep trying? The definition of insanity, Castiel. Look it up.”

“Dean!” The thunderous tone that he rarely pulled out always got the hunter’s attention, set the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. The voice of a celestial being, rather than a man.

He didn’t like to think about what it meant, that it was Castiel the angel rather than Cas the guy-in-human-form that sent chills down his spine. Dean knew he was fucked up. He didn’t need reminding.

“If you refuse,” Cas said, his words slow and deliberate, “everything ends. Everyone dies. You. Sam. All the innocents you care so much about. Lucifer will reign destruction down upon them all.”

“And what happens to you, huh?” Dean hadn’t bothered to ask before, but he was tired and frustrated by the way Cas wouldn’t leave him alone with his grief and failure. “Won’t you go back up...there? You’ll be safe, whatever happens down here.”

“What’s your point?”

“Why do you care! You’re above it all, Cas, literally. It doesn’t matter if we live or die, the weak, emotional humans. You’ll be fine if our world burns. So why not just cut your losses and leave me alone?”

“Because I do. Care.”

“Yeah, well, you shouldn’t. I don’t want anything to do with your war; I can’t win it. Just go.”

Dean pushed past him on the way to the door and opened it, which had Castiel blinking at him in confusion. He didn’t need permission to come and go as he pleased.

When Cas kept staring, Dean sighed and shut the door. “I’m not going to fight with you. I’m going to bed, and I guess I’ll be seeing you tomorrow since you refuse to take a hint.” He hit the lightswitch on his way back to the bed, but was stopped by Cas physically blocking his path.

“Hey, watch it.”

“If the human world dies, it will be a tragedy,” Cas said quietly. “I told you that I believe in the beauty of my father’s children.”

“Yeah, I heard you. Get out of my way.”

“I am here...not just for them.” Dean heard him swallow hard in the dark. “Humanity as a whole deserves to be saved. Individuals are another matter. I know that you don’t believe you deserve to be saved, Dean.”

Even in the dark, Dean could feel the angel’s eyes on him. He could picture them like the day they met, Castiel so strange and unblinking and sincere.

“We’re done with the pep talk now,” Dean replied, resisting the urge to shove Cas out of the way. “I know where you stand--you know where I do.”

“We stand right here.”

Rolling his eyes, Dean wondered why God’s soldiers were always so literal.

“No, I meant--”

“I know what you meant.” Cas’s voice was softer now, a tone he reserved for moments with Dean when he seemed as close to human as he ever got. “I meant, we stand right here. This night, this moment, we stand here, and I am trying to tell you that I don’t know if you deserve saving. I understand your doubts.”

That was unexpected. Dean waited for the rest, whatever Cas was getting at.

“I can’t make you fight back, Dean Winchester. You must choose, as you chose to break the first seal. But I need you to understand that even if you don’t deserve saving, I care whether you survive. I want you to be...saved.”

Something about the way he said ‘saved’ gave Dean another chill. They were less than a foot apart in the darkened motel room and the angel didn’t seem to get the concept of personal space. Or he had no interest in it.

Dean didn’t have the patience to add that to the growing pile of things in his life that made no sense. _Things he was afraid to face._ He paced away, back toward the door, considered trying to usher Castiel out through it again. _Frickin angels, harder to get rid of than demons lately._

From his spot near the door, Dean could see moonlight falling across Castiel’s face in the dark. The angel was watching him, the deep furrows in his brow giving him a thoughtful look that Dean had learned not to trust. Underneath Jimmy Novak’s mild expressions, Cas was all steel.

“It’s too late for me,” Dean said. “You understand? It’s too late. You picked the wrong guy to care about.”

“You make it sound as though I chose this.” Cas replied, perplexed. “I raised you from Hell following orders. I was chosen **for** you, not the other way around.”

Weirdly, his bewilderment at the dynamic between them made Dean feel better. Not being able to get this particular angel off his back--or out of his head--was one more thing weighing on him; it was nice knowing he wasn’t alone.

 _Screw it,_ Dean decided, aware that Sam would steer clear until he thought Cas was gone for the night. He turned around before he could think about it too much and locked the door, adding the chain. “Does any of that really matter?” 

“Of course it does. I’m watching my brethren slaughter each other now, Dean. Why matters. Choice matters. They demand that I pick a side, and I don’t know what’s right or what’s wrong anymore. I know very little.”

Dean crossed the room toward him. “Tell me why you’re here, Cas.”

“Nothing makes sense in these End Times. But I was given...good advice. To think for myself. It is a terrifying prospect.”

“And?”

“And what I know for certain is that I am ready to embrace doubt. To feel. For the first time in centuries, I feel.”

Cas reached out to press his hand against Dean’s shoulder, in the same spot where he’d once burned him with a touch. “For you.”

After Hell, after starting the Apocalypse and Sam drinking demon blood every time he turned around and Castiel staring right through him into a soul he no longer wanted anything to do with, Dean was so close to breaking.

That was all he needed.

He snapped, and left any doubts in the cold daylight next to a playground where an angel had first confessed his own and changed everything.

****

Though his internal conflict had been deemed serious enough to get Cas forcibly reeducated once already, he didn’t hesitate when Dean reached for him. If anything, the angel responded like he had just been waiting for Dean to make up his mind,.

“Sammy can’t know.” Dean’s hands were everywhere, desperate, tugging at his hair and pulling him close by the lapels of his trenchcoat before yanking it down off his shoulders entirely.

“I don’t see why your brother would need to,” Cas replied. “This has nothing to do with him.”

“Family is...it’s complicated. But I wouldn’t be able to explain this and I don’t wanna try.”

Cas nodded, holding still while Dean removed his shirt. He didn’t realize that in the dark hotel room, Dean couldn’t see the nod.

“You get it?” The elder Winchester asked after a moment. “Why this needs to be a secret?”

Humans were a puzzle Cas was still trying to figure out. He knew this much: he wasn’t supposed to find them as fascinating as he did. He wasn’t supposed to care about this one, in particular.

So, no. He couldn’t say that he ‘got’ it, as Dean said. Earth was a chaotic mass of noise and confusion and it was easier when he had been apart from it, when he didn’t feel.

But he understood enough to know that he wanted this, that he’d wanted it from the moment Dean stood before him and didn’t cower. He wasn’t like the others; Castiel suspected that was why they understood each other, somewhere between Heaven and earth.

“You talk too much,” he said instead, glancing behind them at the locked door. If Sam came back while the chain was still on, it would raise more questions than it avoided, and he was sure Dean didn’t want those questions to answer, either.

Dean’s hands were on his bare skin now, the sensations almost more than he knew how to process. Though a mortal body was a strange thing, it had its perks. Being able to feel was difficult, painful...but he liked it.

Sometimes.

He stopped Dean’s warm, exploring hands long enough to pull him closer.

****

Cas kissed him, and for a minute it felt like everything stopped. The hunting, the demons, it all fell away, everything focusing in on where they touched and Dean’s lips felt bruised from the contact.

He was pretty sure he was Cas’s first kiss. Angels didn’t seem big on earthly pleasure, or pleasure at all. Maybe if he were somebody else, he would care that a frantic makeout session, a hookup in a dingy motel room, was Castiel’s introduction to human affection.

But he could only be himself, the guy who hadn’t been able to get this out of his head since he woke up with a handprint branded into his skin and those blue eyes following him everywhere.

That little smirk in greeting, right before Dean stabbed him, that was what did it. Cas spreading his wings in a flash of lightning as casually as a human might shrug. The way he expected deference, and was just begging to have somebody take control out of his hands.

He was tempted to ask Castiel what he wanted, what he liked. Dean wasn’t sure what response he might get, but it probably wouldn’t be one he appreciated in that moment, so he held his tongue.

Cas didn’t have his own questions; he didn’t seem to need anything in particular. _“Whatever I ask, you do the exact opposite,” Cas had told him days earlier._

Being bossed around put Dean’s back up, always had. Right then, though, if Castiel asked, he would have given in. He would have given him all he could, to get lost, to feel better.

Dean had spent his entire life honing self-denial. He could have sex as long as it was casual, as long as it didn’t last. He could eat whatever sounded good, drink as much as he liked.

But he wasn’t allowed to form connections, because his life had to be his father’s mission and then saving Sam and now matters of heaven and hell.

Outside his own blood, Dean had never been as connected to anyone as he was to Castiel. He couldn't break that bond any more than he could unbreak a Blblical seal. So just this once, he would take what he wanted, even though it might hurt.

He kissed Cas back, and let the darkness swallow them both.

**Author's Note:**

> Title borrowed from "Finding You" by Kesha.


End file.
